LAST EDITED ON Mar-30-10 AT 04:48 AM (PST)
Building a Syndication Using Ping.fm
Download PingFM bot here:
http://dombom.com/iframes/PingFMbot.zip
This project is about building a syndication network to form a rock-solid foundation for your marketing projects.
What we're going to do is to create accounts at 10 of the biggest Web 2.0 sites on the Internet. These sites all have these two huge benefits in common:
1. They all work with Ping.fm, which means you can update all 10 of these sites from your single Ping.fm "dashboard".
2. All of these sites can take advantage of RSS.
These sites are:
blogspot.com
facebook.com
hi5.com
multiply.com
myspace.com
plurk.com
tumblr.com
twitter.com
typepad.com
vox.com
But we're not just limited to these sites...As I posted above, aWeber accepts an RSS pheed, so that will also let us bring email marketing and list building into our syndication.
Your medium-term goal (over the next few months) should be to acquire at least 100 different resources that all use RSS in some way. I'll help you get a lot of them, but you should always be looking for more of your own, so we don't all have the same exact patterns.
Don't be afraid to put a little time into creating resources as a major part of your linking strategy. When you get a link, you just get a link. But when you acquire cyber real estate you get a lot more power. If you make a blog, you have the power to add more and more links to your own properties.
And the mixture of these sites gives us numerous added marketing options in addition to SEO. The ability to get "friends" and "followers" using strategies for Twitter, Facebook and Myspace is an example.
We're going to set up a mini-net of 10 of the most popular Web 2.0 sites. We're only using the sites that use RSS and can be used with Ping.fm. Ping.fm is a site that will allow you to log into it, then be able to post to all these 2.0 sites at once. It's like a central command station.
Ping.fm also accepts an RSS pheed, so any resource you have the exports an RSS pheed (like Wordpress blogs) can be used to update Ping.fm, which in turn updates your 10 Web 2.0 sites.
Example:
Wordpress blog => RSS => Ping.fm => 10 Social Media Sites
......RSS => aWeber email campaign
Add this to aWeber and we're building a solid foundation of syndication and automation. Just one post on our WP blog and we're updating Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, creating and sending an email newsletter, and more.
There's basically two stages:
1 Creating accounts at the Web 2.0 sites.
2 Then adding these sites to Ping.fm, so Ping.fm can "control" all of the sites.
Included is a bot that will automate much of the this and greatly reduce the amount of time and effort needed.
Preparation:
You will need a gmail email account for each Ping.fm account and for each of the sites.
Step I Creating Accounts
1. Open the PingFMbot and fill in the three fields: User, email and password.
A .User: This should be one word, 8-14 letters. It can't already be in use, or you'll get errors. You can check to see if your name is in use across many sites here:
http://knowem.com/
Try to pick a general keyword and mix it with a generic word plus a number, like skinnybill7a, healthybarb4u, doglover000. This will get a related keyword in your name, have a great chance of being unique, and not sound too spammy. Your user name will also (almost) always been in the URL of your page/profile. Give this some thought, a good user name has to serve different functions.
B. Email: Use a gmail address.
C. Password: Make it 8 characters. Use small and upper case letters and a number or two. This will meet the requirements of all the sites.
For simplicity, the bot will generate other account info such as names, birthdays, etc.
2. Click the START BUTTON >.
The bot will go to each site and fill in your info. Complete the page, such as filling in a captcha or clicking the submit button that takes you to another page. When done with a site, click the START BUTTON again repeat the process.
Step II - Verify Email
Wait a couple of minutes and log into your Gmail account used for the project and verify emails. There are only 8-9 accounts that need verifying and each is important, so it's best to do these by hand and not automate it.
Also, check the Tumblr email for your "email to blog" email address. Keep a record of it with all your account info.
Step III - Add the Accounts to Ping.FM
The bot will do this for for some of the accounts:
1. Open Bot and select: AddAccounts2PingFM
Fill out the 3 input boxes:
User:
Email:
Pass:
User, email and password must all be the exact same as used in Step I Creating Accounts.
Check your www.Ping.fm dashboard to see which accounts have been added, and add any accounts by hand that weren't added automatically:
blogspot.com
facebook.com
hi5.com
multiply.com
myspace.com
plurk.com
tumblr.com
twitter.com
typepad.com
vox.com
Thoughts:
It will take some effort on your part, but not as much as you think. And remember, this is a one-time event that will pay dividends for a long time to come and is a tremendous multiplier of all future work.
Use the 80/20 rule for marketing - This plan uses different media. You have Twitter, blogs, MySpace, RSS and more. Focus on the "20%" of each that brings the "80%" of the results. In other words, learn the basics of each and implement them, then move on. Don't worry about being an expert and having to master every little detail. Know how to get people to see you and how not to get in trouble.
With this method, we can get "friends" and "followers", plus "readers" and "subscribers"...And they all add up! If you can get 100 people to pay attention to you on Twitter, another 100 to actually read your newsletter, 100 to find your Blogger blog in Google, etc, is the same as having one big email list. And by using RSS, you can exploit them all as easily as one.
You are offering your people the most possible options to stay in contact in the way they prefer and this is a great customer service.
Use good content - This is very important. Since syndication is a true "multiplier", you make a blog post and it's multiplied 10X across some of the most important sites on the Web, in RSS and through email is why you need to use your top of the line content for this. It's basic math, if no one stays on your list or reads your tweets, 10 x 0 = 0. And if you post trash, you'll only be making 10x the trash.
But if you can get a few followers here and a subscriber there, you can greatly multiply your effort! One post or one email message and your words will be syndicated far and wide. Think about article marketing, but your articles are submitted to different sites and email automatically. And since you control the sites, you don't need to have some moderator approve your messages.
How to Syndicate Great Content the Fast and Easy Method:
Scrubz Tuel - If you really want great content, use the Scrubz Tuel to gather and "clean" your RSS feeds to syndicate top-notch content across all these platforms. Here's an example:
1 Set up a main blog using Wordpress on a domain you own.
1a Enter the RSS into Tuelz.
Optional: Mix and match any/all below:
2 Contact 10 good bloggers in your niche, ask if you can use their RSS feed in your content. Let's assume 2-3 agree.
2a Enter their RSS into Tuelz
3 Find good news sources based on relevant kewords and topics
3a Enter these RSS feeds into Tuelz
4Research best RSS feeds at Digg
4a Enter the RSS into Tuelz
5 Find keyword based RSS feed for Twitter
5a Enter the RSS into Tuelz
You'll have nice, high quality blend of content from Your main blog, plus your choice of the best from Guest bloggers, Topical news, Digg, and Twitter.
Using the Scrubz Tuel in an Example Network:
Assuming you've added the RSS pheeds to Tuelz, open the Scrubz Tuel, select your own blog posts, the best post(s) from your guest bloggers, the best news items, and a couple of the best Digg stories tweets from Twitter, all with a few clicks of your mouse.
Log in to aWeber and add the RSS pheed created by Scrubz to aWeber and use it to email your list the content.
Don't want to write? See what your guest bloggers have written...Can you use their content?
Or paste some PLR or EzineArticles.com content in your Wordpress blog?
A decent article plus some good news, stories and tweets can go a long way.
Add the RSS pheed created by your Wordpress blog to Ping.fm. Ping.fm will then post it to the sites we set up above.
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Blog URLs:
The following URLs point to your page(s) that the public and search engines will see.
Just replace the text string "username" in the URLs below with the user name you used to create your accounts. Note that Hi5 and Facebook add a user number to your URL, so you will need to gather these are your own. For all the rest you just need to replace with your own user name.
SPECIAL ATTENTION:
http://hi5.com/friend/profile/displayJournal.do?userid=12341234
http://www.facebook.com/people/username/12341234
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http://username.blogspot.com/
http://username.vox.com/
http://username.tumblr.com/
http://username.multiply.com/
http://www.plurk.com/username
http://twitter.com/username/
http://www.myspace.com/username/
http://www.username.typepad.com/
After you've personalized the URLs:
1. Ping them. http://massblogpinger.com/ Set up pingz
2. Create a few links to these pages to give them some link juice they can then pass on.
3. "Lightly" bookmark them. Don't over-do it. Just get 5-15 links each if you can.
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RSS URLs:
These are the URLs to the RSS pheeds created by these resources. Again, change "username" to the user name you used to create the accounts.
1. Submit each to RSS directories
2. Add list of RSS URLs to your niche's "main" BlogBomb
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SPECIAL ATTENTION: Need to find and use ID number:
http://api.hi5.com/rest/feed/journal/488159059
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/124211741.rss
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SPECIAL ATTENTION: Myspace uses atom, not RSS. Not compatible with Blogbomb and other RSS readers.
http://www.myspace.com/username/stream/atom.xml
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http://username.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
http://username.livejournal.com/data/rss
http://username.wordpress.com/feed/
http://username.vox.com/library/posts/rss-full.xml
http://username.tumblr.com/rss
http://username.multiply.com/feed.rss
http://www.plurk.com/username.xml
After customizing, submit the URLs for the RSS pheeds to the major RSS directories. You can use Incansoft's RSSBot, do it by hand, or wait a few days and I'll make a bot that submits to a few of the best RSS directories.
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SIGN-IN URLs:
These are the URLs for your sign up page. Open Firefox, and close all tabs.
Then open all the URLs below. If you have "Selection Open" use it .
(as discussed in ThinkLinks https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8644 ).
In Firefox, go to: Bookmark => Bookmark all tabs
Name a new folder: Ping.FM
Save
URLs:
http://ping.fm
http://hi5.com/
http://www.facebook.com
http://blogger.com
http://vox.com/
http://tumblr.com/
http://multiply.com/
http://www.plurk.com/
http://twitter.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
In the future, just go to the bookmark folder and "open all in tabs" and you'll have quick access to the log in for all the sites. If you use Roboform or other password management program, you can create different profiles as you add new Ping.fm networks for different niches. And remember, you can post to all of them from your Ping.fm account, so you won't need to log in to individual accounts very often.
Tip: You may want to copy this for your "homepages" also.
Just create two bookmark folders in Firefox:
Dog Training Pingfm - Login
Dog Training Pingfm - MyPage (MyPage is the page the public sees)
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EMAIL2POST:
Four of these sites have an extra juicy feature: Email to post. What this means is you can create an email address for these accounts and every email you send to those addresses will be posted on the sites. Add them all to a mailing list and update them all by sending a single email.
Each email address is different as it also needs to act as a password (since you don't want anyone being able to send it email), but look for how to set up Email2Post at:
Blogger.com
Vox.com
Tumblr.com
Multiply.com
something@blogger.com
something@moblog.vox.com
something@tumblr.com
something@username.multiply.com
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IMPORT RSS
Both Blogger and Tumblr allow you to ADD an RSS pheed. Add a pheed from your Blogbomb install for this niche to Blogger and Tumblr.
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Next, let's see if we can add some more RSS-friendly resources to our network.
-Boom boom boom boom.